Arsenal banter 70847

25 Jun 2019 08:34:17
It's great to see us linked with such young and promising players. Zagadou, Saliba, Andersen etc, all that fit the bill to come straight in to our squad and improve our defence. But let's face it, we will probably end up with a 4ft 30 year old free transfer with no running left in his legs!
Jokes aside, I really hope we do pursue these options but they won't come cheap by any means.

25 Jun 2019 09:02:09
Personally I don't mind us going young and I don't mind having to wait for us to be competitive again 6th 7th 8th would be fine by me as long as I can see progress rather than simlpy hear yet more excuses.
You can assemble the best 11 young players in the world including Mbappe but if they are not organised into an affective disiplinend unit they will always look rubbish.
What we need now more than anything is to start doing the right things on the training field and during matches regardless of what players we have or don't have because until we get that bit right nothing else stands any chance of working out well.

25 Jun 2019 09:50:04
I totally agree mate and I do think that these are the sort of signings we need to make. However, in the current market the prices of these players are just crazily inflated and we simply do not have the funds. With all the positions we are looking to strengthen, we can't spend €25m on each of them so it will be interesting to see where we are at the start of the season. I'm optimistic but then again, I am before every season.

25 Jun 2019 10:07:03
The choices as I see it Moe are continue to tread water like always or try something different?
As things stand it's difficult to see right now how next season will be any better for us than how it's been in recent years
Is anyone really excited by the prospect of having to hope 2 of United Spurs and Chelsea have another poor season?
Personally I say be brave try doing something differently because only by trying different things can you possibly hope to have a different outcome.

25 Jun 2019 10:39:17
Absolutely Glen, like you say we don't have 250 million to 300 millions to spend on 10 or 12 £25 million players, we have 50 million plus what we can raise through sales.
We need to find the next Kante and Mahrez and forget all about the Mbappe Zaha and Maddisons for now that get people excited when mentioned but are never going to happen in the near future.
It makes sense to take a step back if necessary in order to move forward long term but not with the ridiculous better to win 5 3 than 1 0 philosophy that sounds exciting but in reality is has more holes in it than a golf course.
Get back to the basic principles of any successful team then expand and develope on that is the only possible way in my opinion because without good solid foundations anything and everything you build is destined to turn to rumble time and time again.

25 Jun 2019 11:09:51
Exactly mate. We know we are defensively frail so we need to sort that out. Going forward we can score goals, everybody knows that but we do lack a little bit of consistency in our final balls and decision making. Having genuine wingers on the pitch would automatically improve that so Nelson and a new signing would be a perfect starting point. We can't keep trying to provide width with Iwobi and Mkhi, it doesn't work. Iwobi isn't a winger and he wants to play central so that's a decision for the boss to make but I know what I would do. If we can concede less and play exciting football then i'll be happy because progress would have been made with younger players, not players that would need to be replaced after 12-18 months, i.e Peresic/ Banega.

25 Jun 2019 12:27:23
Totally Glen, if the average age of the most played 18 players was 24ish come next May and we created 20% more chances while conceding 35 to 50% fewer chances but finished 8th or even lower I'd be an extremely happy fan.
Progress can't always be measured in points goals or league positions because stats more often than not paint a false picture according to those who use thems agenda, on paper Oliver Giroud was a prolific goal scorer for us using stats but the reality is he actually only ever scored 13 or 14 premier league goals a season, Giroud best assets can't be easily measured by stats but only by watching him play and appreciating his overall team contribution.
The best way of measuring our progress in my opinion is on how few people who witnesesd it over a season actually dispute it.
If next May 85% plus of us think what they've seen over the season is much better than what we've seen from Arsenal for a while and feel positive about Arsenal's future then for me that will be indisputable real improvement.
For quite a few years now we Arsenal fans have been pretty much 50/ 50 positive or negative about our manager team and players when we have the vast majority positive about things again we will have turned the corner for sure.

25 Jun 2019 15:03:44
Yes mate I can't argue with that. Fans will always have their opinions and we're entitled too them but one thing we cannot deny collectively is that we are absolutely shocking at defending and this isn't something that we've only recently come across. It has been the weakest part of our game for many many years and for some reason we still can't get ourselves organised. Personally, I don't believe we have ever signed anyone good enough at the back other than Holding but he was always one for the future.

25 Jun 2019 16:31:58
Arsene was never keen on spending on defensive players, how many years were we without a top keeper before Cech arrived? It used to frustrate me no end that we would finish 3rd or 4th with a keeper who simply wouldn't get into another top 14 team at the time, especially in 2008 when we only dropped out of the title race in the last few games and the big difference between us Chelsea and United that season was they had keepers that saved them points while we had 3 keepers all of who repeatedly cost us points, but Arsene simply wouldn't address the situation and splash out on a top keeper or defenders after that.
Imagine if Klopp didn't see the value of spending big on a defender where would Liverpool be without that missing peace of their jigsaw.
Fergie broke the premier league treansfer record for Ferdinand from Leeds back when 30 million was an absolute fortune but he had the football intelligence to know what value he would bring to his team.
Ok we are can't break any spending records on defenders or any other players right now but we can wake up and finally smell the cappuccino and start respecting and appreciating how important the defensive side of football is again.
Lay the foundations then what you build on them has a real chance of standing the test of time not only over a season but who knows maybe 5 to 8 seasons or longer.

26 Jun 2019 08:23:50
Sounds good to me Glen mate and the nice thing about football is if even if we aren't any good and they let us go after a month you tend to get paid off big style, so a nice 3 year contract at 20k a week would be nice, if we started in July and are really bad we could be back posting on this page even before the new season starts:-)